These are two of the weirdest movies to come out of the UK in the 70s.

I’m posting the Zardoz UK quad in memory of the late, great Sir Sean Connery, although in all honesty this is probably not the movie for which he would most like to be remembered! 

Zardoz was a sci-fi movie he made in 1974 just after Diamonds Are Forever and when he was trying to escape the mantle of James Bond. The fact that he was willing to take risks with his roles has to be applauded, but Zardoz is frankly a very hard movie to love (and that is putting it charitably). I tried to watch it once years ago on late night TV and I dozed off repeatedly, so my memories of it are understandably fuzzy. 

Director John Boorman had delivered several hits previously (Point Blank, Deliverance), but went badly off the rails with this one. Zardoz is set in a futuristic apocalyptic wasteland, but the plot (such as there is) is total gibberish. Most viewers, however, will struggle to get beyond the costumes (designed by Boorman’s wife). As you can see by the illustration of Connery on this poster, the ponytail, cod-piece and thigh length boots look doesn’t do him any favours.I’m pairing Zardoz with the The Final Programme in this post, not because there is any direct connection between the two movies, but they are both examples of odd-ball, almost unwatchable sci-fi disasters that somehow got green-lit in the heady days of the 70s. (One suspects there were drugs involved…) Both are ambitious, philosophical, stylish, pretentious…and largely incomprehensible.

The Final Programme was made the year before Zardoz by director Robert Fuest, who had worked on The Avengers TV series and made the stylish Dr Phibes movies with Vincent Price. This is the French ‘grande’ poster, which rather like the movie itself manages to be both somewhat stylish and also a random mess!